Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Pc David Rathband (Raoul Moat victim) dead

SpookyFrank said:
Wifebeaters you mean? I reckon there's probably enough like him in that respect.
Click to expand...
Because humanity is so easily split between monsters and the rest of us, yeah?

5t3IIa said:
I'd think that with the high-profile of the whole thing he'd have had every opportunity for counselling. This outcome seems doubly odd.
Click to expand...
It's not at all odd. It's a huge thing to come to terms with, and he had every right to decide that his life was not worth living. I hope he got all the help possible, but that has nothing to do with guaranteeing a happy clappy outcome.

When I first read about this, it reminded me of that kid who broke his neck playing rugby and was paralysed from the neck down. His parents helped him to get to Switzerland and Dignitas because that was what he wanted. I can only imagine what they went through doing that, but massive respect to them for respecting his decision.
 
Bahnhof Strasse said:
He was a victim of Moat when he was blinded. However his own personality flaws caused him to fail to come to terms with the hand he was dealt, a hand that many other people are also dealt and adapt to without the seething anger displayed by this poor soul.
Click to expand...

Quite. He couldn't get past the fact that he'd been blinded - an injury that a couple of dozen British soldiers have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have dealt with without the visible and voluminous self-pity that Mr. Rathband displayed, without taking their sense of helplessness and anger out on others physically. I'm not pulling an ACAB line here, by the way, I'm stating a simple fact: Moat did him the injury, but everything after that was a path that Rathband decided to go down, including not accepting the fact of his injury and the changes such an injury wreak on your life.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Quite. He couldn't get past the fact that he'd been blinded - an injury that a couple of dozen British soldiers have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have dealt with without the visible and voluminous self-pity that Mr. Rathband displayed, without taking their sense of helplessness and anger out on others physically. I'm not pulling an ACAB line here, by the way, I'm stating a simple fact: Moat did him the injury, but everything after that was a path that Rathband decided to go down, including not accepting the fact of his injury and the changes such an injury wreak on your life.
Click to expand...

Doesn't make him flawed though does it
 
ymu said:
It's not at all odd. It's a huge thing to come to terms with, and he had every right to decide that his life was not worth living. I hope he got all the help possible, but that has nothing to do with guaranteeing a happy clappy outcome.

When I first read about this, it reminded me of that kid who broke his neck playing rugby and was paralysed from the neck down. His parents helped him to get to Switzerland and Dignitas because that was what he wanted. I can only imagine what they went through doing that, but massive respect to them for respecting his decision.
Click to expand...

That wasn't such a respectable decision though - they were all over the place saying he had 'half a life' afterwards. That's pretty disrespectful of othewr disabled people.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Quite. He couldn't get past the fact that he'd been blinded - an injury that a couple of dozen British soldiers have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have dealt with without the visible and voluminous self-pity that Mr. Rathband displayed, without taking their sense of helplessness and anger out on others physically. I'm not pulling an ACAB line here, by the way, I'm stating a simple fact: Moat did him the injury, but everything after that was a path that Rathband decided to go down, including not accepting the fact of his injury and the changes such an injury wreak on your life.
Click to expand...
Not decided. One does not simply decide to accept one's fate with equanimity. If only it were that simple!

Also, self-pity, initially at least, is a very natural reaction. Comparing him to soldiers injured in war is also not necessarily too instructive. The soldiers will have other means of keeping themselves going - a better support structure, solidarity from his comrades, and also probably a different sense of 'injustice': a soldier goes to war knowing that he may be injured.
 
ymu said:
Just to echo what Minnie said, that is a massively judgemental statement. All of us have things we could cope with and things we could not, and none of us know what those things are until and unless we are faced with them.
Click to expand...

I'd contend that this appears to be a character trait that police officers injured in the line of duty develop more often than either the military or the general population. There's a thin line between working your way back to the best performance you're capable of with your injury, and refusing to accept the limitations your injury places you under. If you don't accept, then you won't go anywhere except underground or up a chimney.
 
Minnie_the_Minx said:
True, but counselling doesn't work for everyone, and not everyone wants counselling whether they need it or not. (I have no idea whether he had counselling)
Click to expand...

TBF, you need to engage with the process if counselling is to work. Mr. Angry spent too much time railing against what happened to him to have engaged with counselling.
 
ViolentPanda said:
TBF, you need to engage with the process if counselling is to work. Mr. Angry spent too much time railing against what happened to him to have engaged with counselling.
Click to expand...

Not everyone comes to terms with it and engages with counselling. He obviously didn't, which is a shame for him and a tragedy for his family
 
ymu said:
Because humanity is so easily split between monsters and the rest of us, yeah?

It's not at all odd. It's a huge thing to come to terms with, and he had every right to decide that his life was not worth living. I hope he got all the help possible, but that has nothing to do with guaranteeing a happy clappy outcome.

When I first read about this, it reminded me of that kid who broke his neck playing rugby and was paralysed from the neck down. His parents helped him to get to Switzerland and Dignitas because that was what he wanted. I can only imagine what they went through doing that, but massive respect to them for respecting his decision.
Click to expand...

Big difference between being paralysed from C3 down, and being blind, though. Mr. Rathband could be said to have still had a lot going for him compared to that young rugby-player.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
How do you know?
Click to expand...

Been there, done that. Life-changing injury, blah blah blah. Counselling, if it's about anything in such cases, is about guiding you to accepting the limitations your injury puts on you. Mr. Rathband's inability to do so speaks 1 of 2 things to me - that he didn't engage with counselling, or that his ego prevented him opening his mind to the idea of acceptance.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Big difference between being paralysed from C3 down, and being blind, though. Mr. Rathband could be said to have still had a lot going for him compared to that young rugby-player.
Click to expand...

Is it tho?

If you gave someone a choice I dont think it would be an easy decision. Personally I would give up just about everything before my sight.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Big difference between being paralysed from C3 down, and being blind, though. Mr. Rathband could be said to have still had a lot going for him compared to that young rugby-player.
Click to expand...

Quite. To suggest that life is not worth living if you are blind is quite a cuss to the legions of blind people merrily going about their lives.
 
Now I despise coppers as much as any right thinking individual but I still have enough respect for them as human beings not to presume to psychoanalyse them after their death based entirely on news reports; nor to criticise their response to an horrific injury like this.

Although if his response was to beat up his wife, I'm prepared to criticise that.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Been there, done that. Life-changing injury, blah blah blah. Counselling, if it's about anything in such cases, is about guiding you to accepting the limitations your injury puts on you. Mr. Rathband's inability to do so speaks 1 of 2 things to me - that he didn't engage with counselling, or that his ego prevented him opening his mind to the idea of acceptance.
Click to expand...

Dont be such a cock. How can you possibly know what went thru his head. I couldnt even begin to imagine what being blind would be like and am not sure any amount of counselling could help me deal with it.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Quite. He couldn't get past the fact that he'd been blinded - an injury that a couple of dozen British soldiers have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have dealt with without the visible and voluminous self-pity that Mr. Rathband displayed, without taking their sense of helplessness and anger out on others physically. I'm not pulling an ACAB line here, by the way, I'm stating a simple fact: Moat did him the injury, but everything after that was a path that Rathband decided to go down, including not accepting the fact of his injury and the changes such an injury wreak on your life.
Click to expand...

There are more than a few ex-servicemen from those two places who have killed themselves as a result of what happened though, plus of course one has to wonder whether a forty-year-old traffic PC in Northumberland is going to have properly considered (or been trained to consider) the possibility that his job will leave him maimed and dependent on others (at least to the extent that a soldier in a warzone might consider the risk of being injured).

Obviously it was his decision to end his life but I dont think you can necessarily blame him for not coming to terms with something as senseless as being shot in the face by Moat, given that it pretty effectively trashed almost every aspect of his life as it existed before Moat shot him.

RIP PC Rathband
 
ViolentPanda said:
Been there, done that. Life-changing injury, blah blah blah. Counselling, if it's about anything in such cases, is about guiding you to accepting the limitations your injury puts on you. Mr. Rathband's inability to do so speaks 1 of 2 things to me - that he didn't engage with counselling, or that his ego prevented him opening his mind to the idea of acceptance.
Click to expand...
I understand that. But everyone is different. Everyone's case is different. YYou seem to be judging him for having failed. He did fail, clearly, but does that mean we can judge him?
 
SpookyFrank said:
Now I despise coppers as much as any right thinking individual but I still have enough respect for them as human beings not to presume to psychoanalyse them after their death based entirely on news reports; nor to criticise their response to an horrific injury like this.

Although if his response was to beat up his wife, I'm prepared to criticise that.
Click to expand...
I think we need a full table of possible responses and their acceptability for criticism :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Kid_Eternity
David Lammy’s time is up
Replies
11
Views
697
Whagwan
Whagwan
Humberto
David Cameron is a walking disaster. And war criminal.
Replies
12
Views
754
Mation
Mation
Pickman's model
david cameron's time is up again
3 4 5 6 7
Replies
190
Views
10K
brogdale
brogdale
Bingoman
Is the Princess of Wales dead yet?
Replies
20
Views
709
moochedit
moochedit
equationgirl
The Unabomber is dead
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
151
Views
7K
JHE
JHE
Back
Top Bottom